Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998

Citation	SI 1998/3162 (N.I. 12)
Territorial extent	Northern Ireland
Dates
Made	3 December 1979
Commencement	3 January 1980
Status: Current legislation
Text of the Statutory Rules (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

The Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 (SI 1998/3162 (N.I. 12)) is an order in council for Northern Ireland consolidating and strengthening legislation regarding "fair employment".^[1]

The order established the^[1]

• statutory monitoring of the part-time workforce
• outlawing of discrimination on the grounds of religious belief or political opinion in the provision of goods, facilities and services

The Fair Employment (School Teachers) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022 amended the Order to remove the exemption that teachers had from the legislation^[2] The exemption of teachers from the original legislation was described as an anachronism which justified discrimination.^[3]

The Catholic Bishop of Derry, Donal McKeown, has supported the legislation, and said the exemption was "no longer appropriate or required" and also described the assumption that everyone was either a Catholic or a Protestant as bizarre, while also noting concerns the move could be used as a "Trojan horse" to remove a Catholic ethos in schools.^[4] Arlene Foster had supported removing the exemption in 2021.^[5]